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IBM's Lotus Expeditor, which developers can use to create collaborative, desktop-style applications for client and mobile devices, is inside Sprint Nextel's Titan platform for most of its smartphones running Windows Mobile 6, IBM said last week.

Expeditor is also used in building some of IBM's own collaboration products, including Lotus Notes e-mail and Lotus Sametime instant messaging.

While IBM's plans are still nascent– given that the agreement with Sprint Nextel regards only WM6 phones– it hopes to strike additional equipment  deals with other phone makers and service providers, including Apple, maker of the red-hot iPhone, according to Bharti Patel, director, Lotus Client Platforms. “As we move forward, we would definitely be thinking in those directions,” she said. “We want it to be widely, widely adopted.”

Sprint Nextel first announced Titan in December. It is still in beta but a commercial version should be released later this year, Patel said.

Emphasis on Mobile Apps

IBM did not publicize its involvement until now, wanting instead to wait for a high-profile occasion like this week's EclipseCon event in Santa Clara, California, Patel said.

“We are intentionally blurring the lines between desktop and mobile development and allowing developers to easily move their applications to the mobile environment,” Tom Moore, director of mobile business solutions at Sprint, said of Titan in a prepared statement.

Lotus Expeditor is based in part on OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative), a SOA (service-oriented architecture) programming model that Redmonk analyst James Governor recently dubbed as an “industry-changer.”

“OSGi allows modules of Java classes to be loaded on demand,” Governor wrote in a recent blog post. “There is no need to load the entire Java stack to run an application- just the runtime services it actually requires. OSGi therefore enables a more dynamic, less constricted Java, which partially explains its enthusiastic backing from major vendors such as IBM, BEA and Oracle.”

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - The latest disappointing Hollywood redo of a J-horror film — in this case, Thai — “Shutter” demonstrates that the subject of spirit photography, which has been a point of speculation for more than a century, might have passed its peak. After all, once we've seen ghosts emerge via videotapes, cell phones, computers and nearly every other technological device known to man, seeing them appear through Polaroids feels a bit retro.

The 20th Century Fox film opened at No. 3 at the North American box office with weak sales of $10.7 million.

In an homage to its Asian roots, the film is set largely in Tokyo, where star photographer Ben (Joshua Jackson) and his new wife, Jane (Rachel Taylor), have arrived for his latest high-profile shoot. Unfortunately, they've barely gotten to town before they have a serious car crash, caused by a mysterious woman on a dark, snowy roadway who promptly disappears.

Pretty soon the same apparition — apparently seeking revenge — shows up repeatedly in Ben's photographs, wreaking no small havoc with his career. Things get even more serious when Bruno (David Denman), Ben's boss, and Adam (John Hensley), a sleazy models' agent, fall victim to mysterious attacks. The increasingly agitated Jane attempts to discover the identity of the malevolent ghost, but she doesn't like what she ultimately finds.

Strictly perfunctory in its concept and execution, “Shutter” presents the usual series of spooky images of a deadpan female ghost showing up at odd times and moving in the slow, jerky movements that are de rigueur for the genre. Genuine scares are few and far between, and the climactic explanation for the ghost's appearances comes as something less than a revelation. It must be said, however, that the final screen image, taking place in a mental institution, is subtly unsettling.

Jackson displays his usual likable screen presence, and Taylor manages to look absolutely gorgeous even while terrified. But despite their respectable efforts, “Shutter,” like the similar remakes that have preceded it, demonstrates that Hollywood might have gone to the J-horror well a little too often.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

SAN DIEGO - Dr. John Kelsoe has spent his career trying to identify the biological roots of bipolar disorder. In December, he announced he had discovered several gene mutations closely tied to the disease, also known as manic depression.

Then Kelsoe, a prominent psychiatric geneticist at the University of California, San Diego, did something provocative for the buttoned-down world of academic medical research: He began selling bipolar genetic tests straight to the public over the Internet last month for $399.

His company, La Jolla-based Psynomics, joins a legion of startups racing to exploit the boom in research connecting genetic variations to a host of health conditions. More than 1,000 at-home gene tests have burst onto the market in the past few years.

The proliferation of these tests troubles many public health officials, medical ethicists and doctors. The tests receive almost no government oversight, even though many of them are being sold as tools for making serious medical decisions.

Health experts worry that many of these products are built on thin data and are preying on individuals’ deepest anxieties.

“People are always rushing to the market on the basis of one or two studies,” said Dr. Muin Khoury, director of the National Office of Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We have very little evidence that telling people their genetic information is going to make any difference.”

Tests have become available claiming to help predict and diagnose everything from serious illnesses like cancer and Alzheimer’s to athletic ability and a person’s ideal diet. Psynomics’ offering is one of the first psychiatric gene tests on the market.

Kelsoe, 52, acknowledges that bipolar disorder probably results from a combination of genetic factors and life experiences, and that the presence of these gene variations does not at all mean that someone will, in fact, develop the disease. He admits, too, that his findings about the genetic basis of the illness are far from complete.

But he said his test is a vital starting point toward moving away from the notoriously tricky practice of diagnosing bipolar disorder based purely on a person’s behavior.

“The goal of this is to try and help doctors make an accurate diagnosis more quickly so the patient can be treated appropriately,” Kelsoe said. “Anything is going to help, even if it just helps a little bit.”

Bipolar sufferers experience intense mood swings as they cycle between manic, sometimes delusional highs and depressive lows that can lead to suicide if untreated. The disease is often misdiagnosed as other forms of depression, which delays treatment and can result in the prescribing of antidepressants that make some patients’ symptoms worse.

To take the test, patients receive by mail a plastic cup that they spit into, seal and send back to Psynomics. The company analyzes DNA in the saliva.

Psynomics will send patients’ test results only to their doctors to avoid the risk of self-diagnosis.

The report that accompanies those results instructs doctors that a positive test means patients are two to three times more likely to have bipolar disorder. But the studies from which those figures come also show the gene variations themselves are rare even among those with bipolar.

The report also points out that for now, the test is valid only for whites of Northern European ancestry who show some behavioral symptoms and have at least one other bipolar family member.

Patients taking Psynomics’ bipolar test may feel branded by a positive result, even if they are not ultimately diagnosed with the disorder, said Hank Greely, a professor of law and genetics with the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. Or they may feel false hope from a negative result, despite the company’s disclaimers.

Likewise, doctors have little training beyond what companies tell them when it comes to applying the test results. “They may make a foolish decision that backfires to put you on meds,” Greely said. “Or they may make a decision that backfires not to put you on meds.”

Unlike many tests for other conditions on the market, Psynomics does not claim its bipolar test can predict a person’s risk of developing the disorder later in life. It is meant to be used as a purely diagnostic tool for patients already showing symptoms.

That is an important distinction that makes the Psynomics test more responsible than others that promise a glimpse into the genetic crystal ball, according to Dr. Greg Feero, head of genomic health care at the National Human Genome Research Institute.

“Now you’re talking about an individual who has symptoms or signs that already put them in a very different risk category than someone who has no symptoms or signs,” Feero said.

Among hundreds of families Kelsoe has studied, one of the gene variations in the Psynomics test showed up in 1 percent of those unaffected by the disorder versus 3 percent who are affected. The other variation appeared in 7 percent of those without bipolar compared to 15 percent who have the disease.

Many other genes interacting with a patient’s environment contribute to the development of bipolar disorder, Kelsoe and other researchers believe, meaning no single genetic variation ultimately causes the disease. Researchers in Kelsoe’s lab are working to track down more genes.

“Why are we starting before it’s finished? You’ve got to start somewhere,” Kelsoe said. “Even if we knew everything about the genes, which we certainly don’t, it’s never going to be 100 percent predictive.”

Psynomics has sold only a few tests so far but is projecting sales of 1,800 tests in 2008 and 30,000 in the next five years.

In coming months, at least two other startups led by genetic researchers are set to release their own psychiatric genetic tests. One test claims to predict the risk of developing schizophrenia. The other is designed to forecast the likelihood that some medications for major depression could heighten suicidal thoughts in patients.

The American Psychiatric Association has yet to create an official policy on genetic testing. A fact sheet issued by the Federal Trade Commission advises consumers to be wary of assertions made by at-home genetic testing companies.

The Food and Drug Administration does not evaluate the tests for accuracy, though a panel is working on a set of standards for the growing industry.

For now, worry persists that with the proliferation of tests, there is too little understanding of what to do with the results, or what they mean.

“We just don’t know how people will use the information,” said Dr. Jinger Hoop, a professor of psychiatric genetics and medical ethics at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. “We don’t know whether it will be helpful to them in the long run.”

___

On the Net:

Psynomics: http://www.psynomics.com

NEW YORK - Traditional media companies trying to stem the flow of advertising dollars to Google and other large Internet companies are increasingly building ad networks of their own, anchored by their brands.

The latest, Forbes Inc., is expected to announce Monday that it will start selling ads this spring for about 400 financial blogs. In recent months, Conde Nast, Viacom Inc., CBS Corp. and other major media companies also have unveiled topic-specific ad networks to lure advertisers that want to buy more ads than any single site can sell.

If newspapers, magazines and broadcasters cannot expand online ad inventory, they are “under threat of becoming less and less relevant to the advertiser,” said Russ Fradin, chief executive of Adify Corp., whose technology runs ad networks for Forbes and others.

But these media networks — some linking fewer than a dozen hand-picked Web sites — may have a tough time competing with the larger networks of thousands assembled by Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL.

Those companies have been expanding, too, spending at least $11 billion collectively to buy smaller ad networks and technologies — and in Microsoft’s case, also bidding more than $40 billion for Yahoo.

“As our technology has continued to advance, we’ve gotten better and better,” said Lynda Clarizio, president of AOL’s emerging Platform A advertising unit. “We can handle a lot of demand from advertisers.”

The expansion drive by both sides comes as Internet users increasingly divide their time across scores of sites large and small. Advertisers would rather not deal with thousands of individual Web sites. Media companies and Internet portals alike are promoting networks as a way to reach larger audiences with “one-stop” ad buys.

So far, the portal ad networks have largely succeeded in selling their affiliates’ leftover ad inventory at discounted rates and sharing revenue.

Now, by employing targeting techniques such as matching ads to visitors’ surfing habits, those large networks also are stepping up their bid for higher-value ads — the ones that have traditionally gone to sites run by the media companies.

Accustomed to selling ads on their own in offline channels, many traditional media companies have been resisting overtures to join the larger networks.

“One of the big ones said to us, `You guys are really good at creating content and we’re really good at selling advertising. It would be perfect,’” said Sarah Chubb, president of Conde Nast’s online division, CondeNet, which has signed up a handful of blogs on fashion and technology. “We’re pretty good at selling advertising, too.”

Smaller networks can offer advertisers a consistent audience on pre-approved sites, while giving those sites individualized attention.

“The folks at Forbes really understood our business,” said Steve Woit, publisher of Xconomy, a blog joining the Forbes network. “A larger network, whether it’s Google or others, has to deal with every industry and large consumer sites.”

Rather than join the large networks, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. figures it is better off recruiting one or two dozen leading lifestyles sites that meet its editorial standards and selling higher-priced ads to Macy’s, Ace Hardware and other brands. Martha’s Circle launched in November.

“Publishers are brand stewards,” said Wenda Harris Millard, the company’s president for media. “The folks … who are assembling these massive networks, most come out of the technology sector. Some of them are good business models, but they are not about protecting brands.”

Viacom’s MTV and Nickelodeon have ad partnerships with independent parenting sites and are launching groups this spring around music and men’s lifestyles. CBS announced last week several local ad networks around CBS-owned stations.

Other media companies are forming networks among themselves. In February, Gannett Co. and Tribune Co., the nation’s two largest newspaper publishers, joined Hearst Corp. and The New York Times Co. to form QuadrantOne to collectively sell some online ads. On Thursday, QuadrantOne said another 26 newspaper companies have joined.

Operators of the larger networks, however, say smaller networks can never produce on the scale advertisers are seeking.

Todd Teresi, a Yahoo senior vice president, said the media companies’ efforts are a “valid path to go, a first step.”

But even if a media company can assemble 10 or 20 like-minded blogs, he said, overall traffic wouldn’t be growing as much compared with what a large Internet company can offer.

In fact, Forbes is initially looking to increase business by just 10 percent to 15 percent, even with hundreds of bloggers.

And in mid-March, The Washington Post Co. ended its 16-month-old ad network because many advertisers had cheaper options through the large portals and blog-specific networks like Blogads.

“We were holding out for value but there was too much inventory,” said Jeff Burkett, director of ad innovation with the Post’s interactive unit.

Instead, the Post hopes to increase ad opportunities by boosting traffic. For starters, it plans to start carrying items from the PaidContent blog and will likely share ad revenue.

Yet the media companies are finding their own networks hard to resist, even if they join the larger efforts. MSNBC.com, a joint venture between General Electric Co.’s NBC and Microsoft, uses Microsoft’s ad technology and sales teams but also recently formed networks around politics and the female-heavy “Today” show.

“We can’t match what Microsoft does, … but they represent a lot of different products,” said Kyoo Kim, vice president of sales with MSNBC.com. “We want to make sure we protect our brand and be in charge of our own destiny as well.”

NEW YORK - Media companies are sharing more than advertising sales as they form networks of like-minded sites to combat the growing ad-selling might of major Internet portals.

Sharing news headlines and other content is a component of many of the revenue-sharing partnerships being forged to give marketers an alternative to Google Inc. and other tech-centered advertising vendors when they want to reach an audience larger than any single site could deliver.

By letting blogs carry the headlines along with the ads, media companies can leverage the trust and reputation they have earned from their offline channels.

The cooperation also helps the traditional media organizations compete against online-only operations such as Glam Media Inc., which are also vying to draw ad money from the larger portals by building portfolios of sites around specific topics.

“We are taking the core content and extending that experience onto other sites and creating ad inventory,” said Kyoo Kim, vice president of sales with MSNBC.com, a joint venture between General Electric Co.’s NBC and Microsoft Corp.

Using technology from Seevast Corp., for instance, MSNBC.com distributes its news headlines through a “widget” — code that the partner site simply adds to the Web page.

Visitors to an affiliate site like Families Online Magazine see a box with MSNBC content — in this case featured videos from NBC’s “Today” show. An ad distributed by MSNBC and Seevast appears underneath.

Seevast rival Adify Corp. also has been testing content syndication in a deal with International Data Group, a publisher of technology magazines, newspapers and Web sites. On Tuesday, it plans to announce its Widget Share, which media companies can use to distribute headlines, video and other material to affiliates.

“What it gives our customer is the opportunity to be more than an ad network but a media network, driving traffic, sharing content and generating revenue,” said Joelle Kaufman, Adify’s vice president for marketing.

Yahoo Inc., meanwhile, has formed a consortium with about 600 newspapers to share ads and content. The program, which will fully launch later this year, is separate from the broader ad network that Yahoo runs, competing with the media companies’ emerging ad networks.

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Saddam Hussein deemed Iraqis could live without modern technology such as mobile phones and the Internet. Now that his regime has been swept away, they are finding they just can't get enough of it.

“The Internet is indispensable for us,” said a Baghdad mobile phone vendor, who gave his name only as Sajjad.

“I download songs, pictures of actresses and video clips,” added the 25-year-old salesman, who admitted that he then loads these, with a few modifications, into the phones he sells.

“My clients ask for a lot for songs, pictures and weird and funny video clips which I usually download from YouTube.com,” said Sajjad.

“Some of my clients have no money to buy credit so they cannot speak on their phones. But their handsets are filled with video clips, songs and pictures.”

Another mobile phone dealer, Ali Adel, 31, said trade in cellphones had become brisk business since Saddam was toppled in the US-led invasion five years ago.

“Second-hand phones are especially popular and we make most of our money from them,” he added.

Prior to the invasion, no mobile phone network existed in Iraq and even private satellite phones were banned.

Since March 2003, however, there has been an explosion in telephony, with three mobile networks and dozens of Internet service providers operating.

This month, wireless fixed voice and data operator Itisaluna began rolling out Internet and modern telephony systems into homes across the war-battered country, with customers paying for the services using scratch cards priced at five, 10, 20 and 30 dollars.

With Itisaluna and other providers bringing Internet into the home, Iraq's cyberface has changed dramatically.

“In the days of the former regime, there were only a few Internet cafes in hotels,” said the owner of “Centre Baghdad” cybercafe, who would be named only as Ali.

“All of them were subject to monitoring and some websites were blocked,” he added.

Iraqis recall the days during Saddam's rule when their emails would be sent to a central monitoring unit which would decide whether it could be onpassed to the intended recipient.

Replies to those mails and other incoming messages were equally censored, and could take weeks to get through, if ever.

Today these restrictions are gone and Iraqis in their millions are using the Internet for chatting, doing research, dating, keeping abreast of current affairs and to access social networking sites such as Facebook and Hi5.

“I go to Internet cafes every Friday,” said a 20-year-old Christian man who gave his name as Bassam.

“I spend more than two hours on the net, using Yahoo or MSN messenger or just going to Hi5.com website.”

However, he said, he had stopped communicating with his relatives abroad.

“Eighteen months ago the brother of my friend was kidnapped by unidentified people who heard him talking by microphone (through Skype) to his relatives in the US. They waited for him at the gate, kidnapped him and finally released him once ransom had been paid.”

Cybercafe owner Ali said most of those using his 16 PCs were young people aged between 17 and 35.

“They mostly use Yahoo Messenger for chatting or checking their emails but some download antivirus updates or do research for their studies.

“Our peak hours are from 4:30 pm to 7:00 pm, but the cafe is open until 10:00 pm,” said Ali.

High school student Abdul Rahman Omar said he visits a cybercafe every day.

“I like chatting. Some friends advised me to go to the 'Arab Chat' website. I spend one or two hours a day there.”

Mobile phone users, meanwhile, use their handsets for more than just talking, with the sharing of video clips the most popular activity.

“I like belly-dancing video clips,” said a 22-year-old student named Bassem. “I buy them and share them with my friends. In return they send me comic video clips via Bluetooth,” he said.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone service provider, posted strong growth across the board in subscribers, revenue, net profit, new music service members and instant messaging users, the company reported Wednesday.

The company added 68.1 million new subscribers last year, nearly half from rural areas of China, executives said in a presentation. Subscriber growth rose 22.6 percent year-over-year, compared to growth of 22.1 percent a year earlier. The figures show China Mobile continues to grow at a heady pace, due in part to its focus on attracting more subscribers from rural areas more inland.

Subscribers totaled 369.34 million at the end of last year, and rose another 7.04 million in January to 376.38 million.

China Mobile's operating revenue rose 20.9 percent year-over-year to 356.96 billion Chinese renminbi (US$50.48 billion). Net profit increased 31.9 percent to 87.06 billion renminbi.

The company's mobile phone subscribers sent 502.7 billion SMSs (short message service) last year, up 42.3 percent compared to a year earlier.

The number of people subscribing to China Mobile's wireless music club rose to 66.88 million, an addition of approximately 50.75 million people last year. China Mobile says it has 250,000 songs available for users.

The number of people paying for subscriptions to mobile news rose to 23.55 million at the end of last year, up by 18.05 million.

The company's Fetionmobile instant message software also fared well, ending 2007 with 73.26 million users, up by more than 67 million compared to a year earlier. Fetion can be used on PCs as well as certain mobile phones, free of charge.

China Mobile plans to invest even more money this year to expand its network capacity and start 3G (third generation mobile telecommunications) services in the run-up to the Olympic Games this August in Beijing. China Mobile plans to spend 127.2 billion renminbi this year, up from 105.1 billion last year, the company reported.